Saturday, September 12, 2009

Climbing Mount Agenda Without a Rope

Heard on the street: “I am a working scientist with a mortgage and family to support. I am paid to conduct research into Evolution. Who will pay me to conduct research into Intelligent Design?” Filed under “Follow the money”. The article below makes a similar point about eugenics “research” in the past and global warming “research” today.

Anyone who doubts the evangelistic nature of certain fundamentalist atheists ought to pay attention to the musings of Richard Dawkins on his own website. This from a comment (comment #16) he wrote to a post by Jerry Coyne at RichardDawkins.net earlier this year:

"Michael Shermer, Michael Ruse, Eugenie Scott and others are probably right that contemptuous ridicule is not an expedient way to change the minds of those who are deeply religious. But I think we should probably abandon the irremediably religious precisely because that is what they are – irremediable. I am more interested in the fence-sitters who haven’t really considered the question very long or very carefully. And I think that they are likely to be swayed by a display of naked contempt. Nobody likes to be laughed at. Nobody wants to be the butt of contempt"

And so Dawkins advocates the use of ridicule and belittlement. How is this unlike a political party, fearing defeat on some policy debate, issuing a talking-points bulletin encouraging members to just make fun of the other side. Would anyone take such an approach seriously? Where I come from, such tactics are considered clear indicators of a lack of meaningful persuasive argument: “If I can’t rationally convince you, I’ll bludgeon you into agreeing with me using mockery and derision.”

... Eugenie Scott's speech at Dragon*Con ..... (BTW, from a purely Darwinian point of view which society is superior and more successful: one that ... The new eugenics will have even more powerful tools at its disposal, ...

which he defined as “the study of agencies under social control that may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations, whether physically or mentally.” He proposed that after eugenics first gains acceptance as an academic matter and then as a practical matter, that it should enter a third and final stage:

"It must be introduced into the national consciousness as a new religion."

"Man is becoming God. Those who see in national socialism nothing more than a political movement know scarcely anything of it. It is more even than a religion. It is the will to create mankind anew".~ Adolf Hitler

THE notion of the "selfish gene" is the most successful scientific metaphor of the past 30 years, followed not far behind by "the extended phenotype". Both were coined by Richard Dawkins and are, as it happens, the titles of his first popular science books.

"We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don't want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members."

Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God’s will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.

Instead, devotees of the new eugenics invoke the languages of choice and prevention. “Children of choice,” “Redesigning Humans, “Remaking Eden,” – these are just a few of the book titles by advocates of the new eugenics. Supporters of the new eugenics frequently invoke freedom as the animating influence behind their support for the new eugenics (one recent book title is “Liberation Biology”).

But it is choice and prevention that actually guide them. Choice and prevention, of course, are not inconsistent with the principles of a modern liberal democracy, and both are frequently invoked as rationales for a range of decisions we make as a society – about everything from abortion to terrorism. Both, however, suffer from serious weaknesses as guiding philosophies for our new genetic age.

The earlier incarnation of eugenics reached its logical conclusion in the horrific policies of fascist Germany. But the new incarnation of eugenics is thriving in the societies where it first flourished in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century– liberal democracies.Why?

Exploring this question requires two things: First, debunking the myth, still embraced by many, that eugenics and liberal democracy are incompatible. History shows us how well suited they are. The fact that liberal democracies, including our own, now have in place protections against the kind of state-sponsored eugenics popular in the early twentieth century does not mean we have escaped the siren song of eugenics. It merely means that we have found new ways to justify our ineradicable desire to improve ourselves. Second, we must trace the three pathways by which eugenics has been rehabilitated: through science, politics, and culture. In doing so we can begin to understand why an increasing number of Americans believe that the new eugenics is inevitable, and why it is no longer shocking to ask the question: must eugenics be a dirty word?

NYT: Eugenics Alert - Why We Must Ration HealthcareComplete with screaming commie style signs.You have advanced kidney cancer. It will kill you, probably in the next year or two. A drug called Sutent slows the spread of the cancer and may give you an extra six months, but at a cost of $54,000. Is a few more months worth that much?

The conception of struggle for existence as a factor of evolution, introduced into science by Darwin and Wallace, has permitted us to embrace an immensely wide range of phenomena in one single generalization, which soon became the very basis of our philosophical, biological, and sociological speculations

Every secondary school in England and Wales will receive a free DVD by renowned atheist Richard Dawkins to celebrate the anniversary of Darwin's Origin of the Species. The speech was originally delivered as part of the professor's 1991 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures for children, and is being distributed by the British Humanist Association with funding from the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science

Initial Scholar List: To date the following scholars have agreed to participate in the development of The Next Thousand Years television series. Some of these scholars will serve on The Next Thousand Years Scholar Advisory Board and most of them will serve as consulting scholars on individual programs.

New Age leader, Barbara Marx Hubbard has staled, "people will either change or die," for "that is the choice." According to those who would concur with Hubbard, Christians will need to be more open minded so they too can receive the mark of the Antichrist. If they will not join with the global community and its agenda, they will be killed by the "opened minded" New Agers. She states that, "This act is as horrible as killing a cancer cell. It must be done (or the sake of the future of the whole. So be it; be prepared for the selection process which is now beginning. We, the elders, have been patiently waiting until the very last moment before the quantum transformation, to take action to cut out this corrupted and corrupting element in the body of humanity

Dr. John Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy—better known as the "science czar"—has been a longtime prophet of environmental catastrophes. Never discouraged but never right.

And thanks to resourceful bloggers, you can read excerpts from a hard-to-find book co-authored by Holdren in the late 1970s, called Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment, online. In it, you will find the czar wading into some unpleasant talk about mass sterilizations and abortions.

It's not surprising. Holdren spent the '70s boogying down to the vibes of an imaginary population catastrophe and global cooling. He also participated in the famous wager between scientist Paul Ehrlich, the now-discredited Population Bomb theorist (and co-author of Ecoscience), and economist Julian Simon, who believed human ingenuity would overcome demand.

If Ginsburg does see eugenic culling as a compelling state interest, she'd be in fine company on the court. Oliver Wendell Holmes was a passionate believer in such things. In 1915, Holmes wrote in the Illinois Law Review that the "starting point for an ideal for the law" should be the "coordinated human effort ... to build a race."

Republican Senator Jim DeMint says that he is troubled by Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor after she told him she had "never thought about" the rights of the unborn child."When I asked if an unborn child has any rights whatsoever, I was surprised that she said she had never thought about it," said DeMint in a statement. "This is not just a question about abortion, but about the respect due to human life at all stages, and I hope this is cleared up in her hearings."

Raleigh, N.C. — State officials are dedicating a historical marker to remember the forced sterilization program that affected thousands of people in North Carolina. The North Carolina Highway Historical Marker will be dedicated Monday at the North Carolina Community Colleges building in Raleigh. Social reformers advocated for eugenics programs a century ago as a way to cleanse society of the mentally handicapped and mentally ill. North Carolina adopted its program in 1929 and aggressively continued the program after World War II, targeting the program at the poor. About 7,600 people were sterilized between 1929 and 1975. A state House panel has recommended that the state give $20,000 to victims of the eugenics program.

Less than 100 years ago, America's finest minds were convinced the nation was threatened by sexually insatiable female morons. A new history of the eugenics movement sheds light on a bizarre chapter in U.S. history.

“The United Methodist General Conference formally apologizes for Methodist leaders and Methodist bodies who in the past supported eugenics as sound science and sound theology. We lament the ways eugenics was used to justify the sterilization of persons deemed less worthy. We lament that Methodist support of eugenics policies was used to keep persons of different races from marrying and forming legally recognized families. We are especially grieved that the politics of eugenics led to the extermination of millions of people by the Nazi government and continues today as ‘ethnic cleansing’ around the world.”

The little booklet only including 60 pages and first published in 1920, was of an outstanding importance for the discussion of "euthanasia", even after the beginning of the "Third Reich". With his juridical arguments in support of the killing of "life devoid of value", which clearly opposed all preceding positions, Prof. Dr. jur. Dr. phil. Karl Binding (1841-1920), a highly respected penal law expert, triggered off an avalanche. In his part of the booklet, Dr. med. Alfred Hoche, a professor in psychiatry from Freiburg, provided a cost-benefit analysis regarding psychiatric care and described sick and disabled people as "people with deficits", "elements of minor value" ,"mentally dead" and "ballast existences". On the basis of a regulated procedure of applications and after the examination by a commission consisting of two physicians and a legal practitioner, both authors requested the painless killing of "incurably" sick persons against their will. They especially referred to inmates of "fools homes" and to cases without hope in "mental homes".

“Well, eugenics was a very fashionable science in the 1930s and nowadays it isn’t. Post Hitler there are people who say not only that eugenics is morally wrong but also that it doesn’t work scientifically. That is bollocks. It works with horses, cows and pigs and ducks. Of course it would work with humans. It’s quite another matter to say that it would be a good thing to do. It comes down to a moral and political choice. Just as the H-bomb. As for only giving examples of bad religion, that is not what I wanted to do even if I seem to have done it. I think I could have been accused of that not so much in the book but in the television programme I did for Channel 4 called The Root of All Evil. But a television programme does not have a single author. It was a kind of ‘over my dead body’ title, for example.”~ Richard Dawkins

One hundred years after the first Indiana law, eugenics might be expected to be a thing of the past. Yet practices that might be considered eugenic persist, and there is good reason to expect them to flourish in the near future. In this presentation, Professor Mehlman described the history of eugenics and its treatment by the courts, and discussed modern practices that might be deemed eugenic and their likely fate in the courts.

In short, eugenics is the applied science of Darwinism (social darwinisim).The Malthusiancatastrophe where the lower class all die and the well-to-do survive, became the inspiration for eugenics. The modern eugenics movement started in the United states in the late 1800’s and continues under different names today. The original eugenics movement eventually was promoted in Germany, and Hitler was so inspired by the Americans he created his own genocide based on the laws of eugenics. This would have been the ultimate goal of the eugenicists, but they failed. The eugenics operations in the us changed their names. Today they are called ‘population control, or planned parenthood, or one child policy. and screening for unborn children has begun to determine their genetic standing. Billions of dollars are being poured into the population control agenda today. The old money of the Rockefeller blending with the new money of Gates, Buffet and others.

We in the Eugenics movement are not interested in competing against Adolph Hitler or Karl Marx for some minuscule little 1,000 year Reich. We are interested in competing with Jesus Christ and Buddha for the destiny of man.~ Favored Races Manifesto by James L. Hart

91 Comments:

I don't suppose there is any point in reminding you, Babba, that only a minority of atheists even know what "eugenics" is, never mind support it. Objectivist atheists such as myself despise it. But you have your GOD on your side, and if I don't believe in HIM, what good is my word on anything?

Please, no lectures from anyone about how I'm being a paranoid atheist. Baba is making her position quite clear. So am I.

I never said anything remotely like what you write there, ever, anywhere, about anyone.

I have never attacked any atheist people or proselytized my GOD to them. I simply state what I believe in without apology and expose the agendas of the ones who like to direct thought. I do this to the makers of Religious Pamphlets as well.

The Pamphlet Makers in this world have a definite agenda. This is the point of the post.

1)One of the first people to propose Eugenics was Darwin's cousin Frank Galton, and he proposed such based upon his understanding of Darwinistic theory

2) Eugenics as a movement has often been supported by appeals to Social Darwinistic thinking (It must be noted that Darwin himself was a Descriptive Scientist, not a Prescriptive Philosopher - others took his theories and used them in a Prescriptive manner.)

3) Eugenics is a movement which has mutated, not died. It's new mutations tend to deal with Genetic issues, and concerns with not having "disabled" children of various sorts. It's more of a "Brave New World" approach, and we could never truly be aware of the long-term consequences of such an approach.

Yes Pastorius but additionally I would add that I want people to understand exactly what the POV is when they read about Obama and Holder and Dawkins and Scott and when these people are lauded and hattipped and mazel tovved and made czars etc they should know this is the shit they believe in and that they are consciously attempting to direct thought never mind body

Caught up recently with the announcement of a world meeting of atheists in Melbourne, Australia, in March next year. I'm very tempted to go, not just because of the caliber of speakers (including Richard Dawkins and Peter Singer) but just because it is a big assembly of rational human beings all in one place, and atheists don't often get to experience that.

At HuffPohttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-horton/not-enough-reality_b_263550.html

This post is brilliant Babba. I hope many of our readers take the time to go through all of it.

It says a lot about Obama.

Let's see now, by my count Obama has now appointed four absolutely evil men,

1) Van Jones - Black Nationalist2) Peter Singer - who advocates ending lives which are not, by his measure, viable.3) Ezekiel Emanuel, who advocates the end of the Hippocratic Oath4) Holdren - who has advocated forced abortions and the de-development of the United States

http://ibloga.blogspot.com/2009/07/why-yes-theyre-evil.html

http://ibloga.blogspot.com/2009/07/obamas-science-czar-pushed-de.html

Additionally, Obama has appointed one potentially very evil man name Cass Sunstein who has, esstially advocated establishing a Ministry of Truth:

I posted on that. But, here's the problem, so many people either do not believe in God, or have such a nominal belief in God that such words have little resonance for them, and they can not truly be expected to understand unless they are strident intellectuals.

One thing the post did touch on was Marget Sanger's Racism and support for Eugenics. Something that is too often ignored by Historians. I appreciate that, its a good thing that there are people out there like you, who are willing to speak politically incorrect truths.

As for that new film, Darwin's Dilemma, it looks interesting, but judging by the add it looks like its going to be repeatedly saying, we don't know how this could have been done by naturalistic means, therefor God did it. That's not exactly scientific. The argument from irreducible complexity has been debunked multiple times. However if it is going to be arguing for guided evolution, it will still be arguing for evolution.

Evolution and a belief in God are not incompatible as some people believe. The problem of curse is how do you prove that God was the driving force behind the process. Once science starts using Miracles, of any kind to explain something, it ceases to be science. For a theory to be scientific, if must be testable, and it must be falsifiable. There is no way to disprove the claim that God did it. Therefor if God exists, science will still never be able to prove that he exists.

We in the Eugenics movement are not interested in competing against Adolph Hitler or Karl Marx for some minuscule little 1,000 year Reich. We are interested in competing with Jesus Christ and Buddha for the destiny of man.~ Favored Races Manifesto by James L. Hart

they always send more than one front against the enemy with the same agenda but in a different guise their shared enemy, when you strip alllll this crap down to it's essence, in all these things is the God of Israel.

Is anyone tired yet of proving over and over that this crowd is a circle jerk around a uniform theory?Obama is just one and may not be, need not be the leader

Every one of these guys can have Wesley Mouch branded on his forehead and just make canned speeches out of that book and would sound and conduct themselves in an identical fashion to their real life selves.

Either we are going to all end up institutionalized for nanny reeeducation and gentle shushing via haldol and other happy juice for 'our own good' or we are going to find ourselves celebrating the death of the MSM and its sycophantic rectothinking Olberodonnell elitist mentally tortured losers and all their leftist progressive social GOONS the way the we saw the germans TEARING DOWN THE FUCKING BERLIN WALL.

I spend most of my time studying and thinking about the global jihad, and almost none at all worrying about perceived 'threats' arising from atheism (which I would rank well below other concerns such as second-hand smoke, driving while intoxicated, or polar bears with not quite enough ice to stand on).

Atheism is not like a three legged stool whereby you can simply knock out a leg and it topples over for lack of support. Atheism easily thrives and continues to grow worldwide despite repeated attempts by 'theists' to simply boot it over with a swift kick, ala Hitler's rotted stump metaphor.

It survives because it is the truth. It survives for the very same reasons that all theists are essentially 99.9% atheists themselves, at least in the sense of their own personal rejection of ALL THE OTHER PROPOSED GODS, besides their own, that other people have put forward in the history of humanity.

You may knock out a leg or even three by pointing out the curious moral flaws, or cognitive defects, or even the misdeeds of this or that person who may or may not have played a role in planting some early seeds of atheist reasoning. But atheism isn't a stool. It's more like a 'trillipede'.

I might have said centipede or millipede but then you might be inclined to conflate it with a very elaborate stool instead.

An atheist such as myself sees the beauty of evolution in every blade of grass and in the wing of every dragon fly. Also in the pain of a wisdom tooth coming in along a jawbone that is no longer of sufficiently length.

Do you actually suppose your personal affinity for just ONE particular god, out of the many, many that have been proposed somehow places you closer to the camp of the Jihadist (for his monotheism) than to me for my atheism?

I reject Islam because it says "believe or die". I reject numerous other religions because they say "believe or you can't be part of our happy club", or "believe because its good for you and everybody else"

I disagree. In my view, belief in after-lives and metaphysical places effectively cheapens this life and this place.

Anonymous,Babba has already said it earlier in this comments thread. This is not about Atheism. It is about a larger agenda than that.

Neither Babba nor I have any problem with Atheists.

The problem is with the anti-Life/anti-human agenda that is at the core of the Socialist/Green paradigm.

Ultimately, if you haven't noticed, the Socialists and the Greens are always making laws which betray their contempt for the amount of humans on the planet Earth, the decisions humans make, the amount humans consume, how they choose to consume it, how much money humans should be allowed to keep, etc.

You say you fight the Jihad. Well, doesn't the above agenda sound familiar?

It's an anti-human agenda, and that is why people like Babba and I FIGHT THEM BOTH.

"If my GOD is not real, you tell me, scientist, WTF is there to be threatened by?" Huh?

And why is that pink and black "Thoughts of a Dying Atheist" thingy there at all if this was just a discussion of the pseudo-science of eugenics? Why comment about the "evangelistic nature of certain fundamentalist atheists"?

Please. Yes, I'm a heathen atheist Objectivist. But never assume I am stupid.

And not in a good mood for this, btw, having just come back soaked to the skin from the rained-on Tea Party in Gloucester MA (fairly good turnout) where an organizer went around asking people if they believed in God and when I said no yelled at me, "Well, you're WRONG!" Maybe this guy just wasn't wrapped tight, but it was still annoying when standing there sopping wet with an "Obama: YOU LIE" sign to be screamed at for not believing in someone's god.

It might interest you to know that the first person I heard about eugenics from was some fool of a pro-eugenics Satanist cult leader who was trying to claim we had no right to criticize the Nazis when allegedly Christians in this country had supported eugenics. As if that had anything to do with it being totally gonzo. It is true that some seriously creepy people are out there who believe in this stuff.

"If my GOD is not real, you tell me, scientist, WTF is there to be threatened by?" Huh?

And why is that pink and black "Thoughts of a Dying Atheist" thingy there at all if this was just a discussion of the pseudo-science of eugenics? Why comment about the "evangelistic nature of certain fundamentalist atheists"?

Please. Yes, I'm a heathen atheist Objectivist. But never assume I am stupid.

And not in a good mood for this, btw, having just come back soaked to the skin from the rained-on Tea Party in Gloucester MA (fairly good turnout) where an organizer went around asking people if they believed in God and when I said no yelled at me, "Well, you're WRONG!" Maybe this guy just wasn't wrapped tight, but it was still annoying when standing there sopping wet with an "Obama: YOU LIE" sign to be screamed at for not believing in someone's god.

It might interest you to know that the first person I heard about eugenics from was some fool of a pro-eugenics Satanist cult leader who was trying to claim we had no right to criticize the Nazis when allegedly Christians in this country had supported eugenics. As if that had anything to do with it being totally gonzo. It is true that some seriously creepy people are out there who believe in this stuff.

Obviously I was speaking to Dick Dawkins and his buddy Sam there It may help you to read the information I am linking

I was not talking to you personally - I would think that would have be self evident

and if you hate the whole eugenics thing as much as you say what is so wrong with me asking them that? they are the one who said religion was a "threat" WTF are you so threatened by?it's a valid question.

Shouldn't you be even more pissed at those assholes than me sseing as you are an atheist and they are misrepresenting you? Shouldn't you be chagrined that those who are helming the "atheist movement" are totally batshit crazy?

Then again I have been called a Catholic hater for taking on the Pope too - and an evangelical hater for taking on their bullshit , an Islamophobe, disowned by the Jews cause I speak of Jesus

blablablablablabla infinity

so it is what it is

the I me Mine Rulethand no one really groks the fullness

I have explained myself plenty here

But if it makes you happier to think I am personally trashing you and everyone that looks like you knock yerself out

You said: ...having just come back soaked to the skin from the rained-on Tea Party in Gloucester MA (fairly good turnout) where an organizer went around asking people if they believed in God and when I said no yelled at me, "Well, you're WRONG!" Maybe this guy just wasn't wrapped tight, but it was still annoying when standing there sopping wet with an "Obama: YOU LIE" sign to be screamed at for not believing in someone's god.

I say: I'm sorry to hear of that unpleasant experience.

Richard Dawkins is a more intelligent Atheist equivalent of that guy with the sign.

Perhaps that will help you understand why Babba and I attack his agenda.

I do playlists or at least two songs on all my threads, I try to pick songs as well as images that relate to the topic, that song fit the topic, it is like "Ode to Dickie Dawkins" I did not write it myself.

if you are insulted by the song contact the band

Seems to me if you were more secure in your own beliefs I would not have the capacity to make you so angry merely by displaying mine openly

http://babbazeesbrain.blogspot.com/2009/02/darvangelist-propaganda-and-evolution.html (DICK) Dawkins goes much further when he states that "[i]t is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid, or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that)."

OK. Language check here for all you purple proles. This is a war for your BELIEF SYSTEM:

"to believe in evolution"

I want you to notice how the language in this so called "debate" is consistently posited as stated as above, that one must "BELIEVE IN EVOLUTION" or not BELIEVE IN evolution, and if one does not "BELIEVE" in evolution, one is an unhinged lunatic upon whom ridicule, derision and scorn must be heaped immediately.

Evolution is a partially described biological MECHANISM, it is not an a scientifically identifiable originating CAUSE. Science, taken as a school of thought, offers no identifiable originating cause.

"to believe in evolution"

This statement is more accurately then a statement of THEOLOGY or PHILOSOPHY, which both deal with BELIEFS and IDEAS, and not at all a statement of science, which purports itself loudly to deal purely with physical evidence and observable, provable processes only.

An observable, describable, working mechanism, biological or man made, is self evident as a mechanism. It either exists or does not exist, there is no call to "believe IN it " or no, it either is there and can be seen, described, and "proven", or not. I do not believe in my lungs, they are there, and they work, as evidenced by my continued breathing. They can be seen, described, and proven. My lungs are not the cause of my body. They are an obvious and observable operating mechanism contained within it.

What the Darvangelists are doing with language here is elevating a partially described MECHANISM (evolution) to the level of a fully blown CAUSE (GOD). They are deifying a PROCESS because they refuse to acknowledge, can not identify, and are, on some level ~ at war with the MAKER.

This is not a legitimate "debate". The terms and definitions it is being premised upon are entirely intellectually dishonest. This is insanity. This is classical idol worship. This is PROPAGANDA.

This is an all out war for the terms and definitions you, the spudniktariats, will use to define your reality in your brave new Glow Ballin' future. They want the control of the words in your mouth. He that owns your words, your terms and definitions, controls thought itself. Whether you believe in GOD or not, you can not allow this theft of thought to take place if you intend to stay free. Do not become their next useful idiot. Unfortunately, many have already evolved themselves into that regrettable position.

If science claims to want religion to stay the hell out of it's business then science would do well to stay the hell out of religion's business. Why should any scientists give a rat's ass what you BELIEVE? Because their end game is to own and direct what you believe, which has shit to do with science... but has all to do with power.

Perhaps I should have phrased what I said differently. I actually like Buddhism, and practice a form of Buddhist meditation. I also like many of Rand's ideas.

I would also classify myself as a fan (for lack of a better word) of Hinduism, though I believe that many of it's ideas are almost as anti-human as Islam.

I studied World Religions quite extensively in college. I love religions. However, I have never found anything to like about Islam, except for the small sect of Sufism.

Anyway, critically, what I don't like about Buddhism and Randism are as follows:

1) I don't like that Buddhism makes "Acceptance" the highest of virtues. And, to me, it is no wonder this has led, in general (along with Confucianism) to a Chinese culture which is dominated by Tradition and enforced homogeneity.

2) Rand made "Selfishness" her highest virtue (which is find as an Economic ideal), and even went so far as to criticize Altruism as dangerous. Her argument against Altruism smacks of Prescriptive Social Darwinism. I detest such ideas. And, I would ask everyone, if Altruism is such a bad idea then what do you think of all the Catholic and Jewish Hospitals around the world?

Altruism is an integral part of enlightened self interest - it makes us human as much as NOT CHEATING ON YOUR SPOUSE. Otherwise we become amoral animals.

Rand always seemed to me to welcome this part of animal behavior, and try to ignore that it likened us to them

But as you said in Churchillian fashion, Pasto, Objectivism sucks except for most everything else.

I still say she understood human nature far better than any other philosopher, and it is THAT which puts her system in close alliance with that articulated from 1775-1789. The Constitution and Declaration are observations of human nature. They observe and DEPEND on human weakness to succeed and be real.

The very fact that their work, their success, their direction is really among the muck and grit of what humans really are is lost sometimes in solipsoid rants (myself included) about the wonders of freedom, yadda yadda.

Hey I read everything Rand wrote until about 15 pages into Galt's interminable speech in Atlas Shrugged.

Then I picked it up after he finished. I think you either get it or not by that time.

Somehow anyone, being an ardent acolyte of anyone or anything makes my body hairs stand on end, which is why the whole Branden thing and her husband creeps me out in the extreme.

It wasn't just some wife swapping open marriage schtick, it was something really sick.

Sort of like Kos, MoveOn, Huffington and Soros.

In order to be that kind of acolyte some kind of self abnegation of moral self interest is involved and then next thing you know, in your hand is a metaphoric dixie cup with a purple drink

Reading a book by someone who sipped regularly just doesn't seem like the book under the pillow for me.

Now Herodotus .... Hey reading how the Persian leader tricked Harpagus into eating his own child, and set in motion the rise of Cyrus ... or reading how the hero of Marathon, Miltiades played both sides to stay alive and keep his city state from being pillaged .. much better, besides it's always a thrill to find out something new..like democracy was invented and brought to Athens because an out of control foreign policy by a wild and crazy Spartan King by accident over a gay lover's fight about an affair and supposed pawing that never occurred.

Epa said: Altruism is an integral part of enlightened self interest - it makes us human as much as NOT CHEATING ON YOUR SPOUSE.

I say: It says in the Bible, both Old Testament and New Testament, that God judges man by his heart, not by the outside. It says, help the widows and the orphans, and as you do unto the least of these, you do unto me.

This is part of OUR tradition, Epa, and she "scorns" it.

She scorns it in the name of a Philosophical System.

SHE IS WRONG.

And, are you proud to say you don't cheat on your wife, merely out of "enlightened self-interest"?

What about my neighbor, who not only never cheated on his wife, but never did so, while taking care of her for twenty years while she was bed-ridden and dying of MS?

Epa said: I still say she understood human nature far better than any other philosopher, and it is THAT which puts her system in close alliance with that articulated from 1775-1789. The Constitution and Declaration are observations of human nature. They observe and DEPEND on human weakness to succeed and be real.

I say: I tend to agree with that statement.

Rand did understand human nature better than any other Philosopher, except perhaps John Locke.

I have more research on Eurgenics and know how they integrated the Eugenics into the legislation without you ever knowing about it. I did a research project on this a few years ago.

I see overtones in the way health care is administered, and frankly, ran straight into the ugly demon last year. Eurgenics is not dead by any means, they renamed it and there are plenty of academics involved in perpetuating it.

It becamse a formal academic study in 1933 with the publication of the Encyclopdia of Social Sciences. I found a copy at Washington University. I found a lot at Washington University and in St. Louis, which has a rather dark history when it comes Eugenics.

I have a copy of "Fruit of the family Tree" - which should be required reading in every American History class - they should be teaching this as a component of American History -

These buzzards have been in a business a long time, influencing Congressional legislation, especially Newt Gingrich.

They built the Eugenics model and the bell curve algorithm into the FICO Score, so that "inferior" people will get use up all their money paying loan sharks and high interest, while white wealthy classes enjoy perpetual low interest and low costs.

And of course, they won't be able to afford health care, so they get sick and move on. FICO is a loan sharking scheme. MY husband and I got a copy of their internal white papers - my husband is a mathematician

They use a math model called "math magic" where they can manipulate the equation to give whatever result they want by deceiving the public on the statistical methods.

They change the parameters to lift white upper classes higher on the bell curve.

Notice nobody is blaming FICO for the economic collapse? FICO caused the economic collapse. All the corporations went on a credit-based balance sheet that eventually caved.

The credit based economy began with FICO in 1971. I would appreciate comments to my email shari74@gmail.com

Damien: Regarding the "First Mrs. Grimaud" - (Sharon Tronsgard Grimaud Hodges), don't pay her no never mind..... She's a visitor here from planet WooHoo (population 1) and all the return flights have been cancelled until further notice. As an act of kindness and goodwill, we've agreed to let her reside on this planet. - - Kindest regards, The People of Planet Earth

The Parallel Government
Of The Entire World

All of us, every single man, woman, and child on the face of the Earth were born with the same unalienable rights; to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And, if the governments of the world can't get that through their thick skulls, then, regime change will be necessary.

The Untold Story of Muslim Opinions & Demographics

Infidel Babe Of The Week
Moran Atias - TYRANT

IBA Quote of the Week.

Trump took the elements of an independent candidacy — the lack of clear ideology, the name recognition of a national celebrity and the personal fortune needed to fund a presidential campaign — and then did what no one seemed to have thought of before. He staged a hostile takeover of an existing major party. He had the best of both worlds, an outsider candidacy with crosscutting ideological appeal and the platform of a major party to wage the general election. By the time he had finished, he had taken down two political dynasties: the Bush dynasty in the primaries and the Clinton dynasty in the general election.

The Infidel Bloggers Alliance Radio Show

Gathering Storm Report Radio Show

"An Islamic regime must be serious in every field," explained Ayatollah Khomeini. "There are no jokes in Islam. There is no humour in Islam. There is no fun in Islam."

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"I want to be very, very clear, however: I understand and agree with the analysis of the problem. There is an imminent threat. It manifested itself on 9/11. It's real and grave. It is as serious a threat as Stalinism and National Socialism were. Let's not pretend it isn't."~~~~~Bono~~~~~